We sat in his office, him looking into the camera, me at him and the Hong Kong skyline as background. First time I'd seen it from this vantage point.

I asked him for a memory of Chabad Hong Kong that came to mind.

"There's this story your father said every Shemini Atzeres..." The story is about my paternal grandfather, R' Meir Avtzon, who was exiled by the Soviets with a colleague, R' Leizer Nanes, for counterrevolutionary activities ie spreading Judaism

They were off in a far east province, and Sukkos was approaching

(KGB pic of my grandfather)

The day of Carter’s passing is a good time to remind everyone the story about my grandfather Rabbi Shemtov “giving in” and lighting too many candles is *at least* half made up, blown out of proportion and misses completely what actually happened that night.

🧵 For years the story went as follows:

For the first National menorah lighting there were actually two menorahs. One larger public one and a smaller one to be lit in front of the President. He lit the shamash.

tldr of this weeks Torah Or

you don’t need to be fixed to fix the world, and you can continue that which you couldn’t begin

a thread The first three Jews are fathers, even though they were all sons

Spiritually this was because they all transcended this broken world, as well as any brokenness in their past

The intensity of their paths was so strong they each constituted a spiritual beginning